The Water Pump & Moon ( the controversial )

Right. What a photograph communicates does not need to be what it appears to be. The problem is that too often it is just that, when it could be more.

Lannie, Donna's description is also an analysis of her process. That, if applied to a photo, would make a great kind of critique. And being in the moment when taking a photo, or being in the moment when first viewing a photo, is different from stepping back and critiquing or talking about the photo. If you want to limit yourself to mathematical equations about the angle of the moon in discussing a photo, be my guest. But please don't imply that technical observations are the main thing to address in a photo or that it's too hard or impossible to address the whys of likes and dislikes or of aesthetics. In first or second grade, most of our teachers told us, when writing a book report, it's not enough to say something like "I like it" or "I like it because it's nice." And no good reading teacher would ever limit a good critique to analyzing grammar, sentence structure, and consistency of voice. They want to hear what you think of the story, the characters, the poetry of the prose. That's a way to approach a photo as well, but only if one wants of course.

I'm certainly not in Arthur's camp, and don't think discussing technical aspects of any work of art shows any sort of lack of depth in approach or that commenting on some detail is akin to worshipping detail. But neither do I think discussing why one responds emotionally to a photo is too hard a task to bother with. Liking is more than liking. It's the beginning of describing a much deeper emotional process. Why does a photo make me feel tense or disquieted? Is it the imbalance in composition, an element which seems to distract me, a particularly strong facial expression? Do those sorts of responses and connections make me like the photo? Of course I can answer that. That's speaking for myself. Your mileage may vary.

Louis, that would be the full moon. The crescent moon is seen near the sun, not opposite it.

Bela does say on one of these two versions that he flipped the image horizontally, but that is another issue.

--Lannie

I won't say that it is impossible, Fred. I just don't think that anyone has done it yet. A photo typically grabs one by the gut or it doesn't really grab one at all. It is true that we can analyze after the fact all we want, but let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that that will really make us better artists. It only makes us better critics, and critics are not usually artists, though they have their place.

I have read your volumes of words in the philosophy forum about why you like photos, but finally the photo itself must speak for itself.

None of this is really as anti-ntellectual as it may sound. In fact, what I am arguing is that esthetic judgment is finally not anti-intellectual, only non-intellectual, at least in the vast majority of cases. Some photos do indeed make me think, but those photos usually convey something besides an esthetic.

I do think that one can give personal reasons why one likes something, but rarely if ever universal reasons.

--Lannie

<<<but let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that that will really make us better artists>>>

IMO, one mistake people with cameras make is thinking that understanding why they respond emotionally to certain things in photos is not a question of art but just a question of philosophy or critique. It's what keeps most people with cameras from becoming photographers or artists, again IMO. Many of the greatest artists throughout history have discussed in great detail, for example, how colors make them feel or how a style of writing can elicit certain emotions. The myth that understanding art somehow is alien to art is just that . . . a romantic myth, not unlike a Hallmark moon.

There is a magic to art, for sure. But there are also nuts and bolts. The magic rarely happens without being well in touch with the nuts and bolts, with how the engine actually runs.

I do see shooting as an essentially non-intellectual activity, Fred. As I said, one may analyze intellectually after the fact, and I do it as much as anyone else. I am just not sure that it helps to make me a better photographer.

I did not mean for that to sound like a criticism of your discussion of passion, etc. in the philosophy forum. I only meant that finally the photo must do most if not all of the "talking." I do enjoy listening to others tell me what they like about a photo. I enjoyed reading what this particular image evoked in Stephen, but these are deeply personal reasons that one has trouble conveying unless the other has had the same experience or memory--and I do think that memory is important, and is not necessarily reducible to nostalgia.

--Lannie

Fred, you couldn't have more completely missed my point, which was not to criticize technical detail commenting as wrong as such, only that when it is done as with little regard for other qualities (or not) as the aesthetic, symbolic, intellectual, emotional, enigmatic and transcendental qualities of an image then the technical "niceties" type of evaluation becomes an unfortunate paradigm that seems to flourish. I am surprised that you, someone normally sensitive to those aspects, clearly missed what I was saying.

Anyways, goodnight all, it is now 00:21 AM.

Yes, Landrum, thanks for the correction. The rest of my critique stands. A pleasant, romantic cliche.

For the record, Arthur, I hardly adjudge from your wonderful photos that your esthetic sense is "dead, dead, dead." Out of context, that kind of quote lends itself to gross misunderstanding.

--Lannie

Arthur, I missed it because you didn't say it . . . until now. Thanks for clarifying.

But not all critiques cover everything. If a technical detail like noise stands out to me, I might, in an Internet forum, merely mention it and hold it at that. I would usually do that if I wasn't emotionally moved by the photo itself, which in the case of last week's photo, I wasn't. So I commented on the noise and left it at that. I don't think it required an accompanying comment on what I considered a not very compelling scene or photo. If I'd had more interest, I might have included some other comments. In short, I wouldn't necessarily judge a critique by what's left out. I simply wouldn't assume that talking about noise and not talking about other aspects of a photo means one has little regard for other qualities. It might simply mean one didn't talk about them.

Agreed, Fred, but are not the "nuts and bolts" the technical considerations?

I said above that when we analyze why we like photos we will find or express personal reasons, not universal ones. That was a gross overstatement on my part. Sometimes, when we really do communicate with other persons, what resonates between us is surely both personal and universally human.

Awe upon looking at the night sky is one of those things. I am not suggesting that I cannot relate such moments of awe to other things in my experience, or communicate them to others, simply that I cannot reduce such communications to rules or a formula for shooting.

Let me also concede at this point that I am playing a bit of the devil's advocate tonight. I am not sure that I am right, or that you or Arthur are wrong. I did think that it might be worth trying to defend the thesis that shooting is essentially non-intellectual, apart from technical matters, at least. Why is "the light on that wall" so wonderful? I really do not know. I simply do not know.

--Lannie

I understand what Donna Pallotta is saying about how rapid and perhaps instinctive decisions go into the making of her photographs. I'd wager much of that ability is based on a lot of experience. I'd also wager that she could sit down and explain in detail the basis for her instinctive decisions -- the reasons why she likes her own photographs and those of other photographers. I see photographs here on PN that grab me by the gut, and I know it immediately. Give me time, and I should be able to also tell you the technical, aesthetic, and emotional reasons why I got grabbed. More to the point, I also strongly believe that being able to articulate all of that will help me (eventually and somewhat) to become a better photographer. In fact, that's why I like to comment on photographs in the critique forum -- I feel that I get a lot out of it (admittedly the quality of my critiques varies), and hopefully my opinions sometimes connect with the other photographer. I do believe that intellectual involvement with photography critiques influences how one sees through a viewfinder. Photography is not like breathing -- it can be thought about, discussed, analyzed on different levels, influenced by others, and hopefully made better through conscious decisions that may become more and more instinctive with time and experience.

I'm not talking about rules or formulas. I'm talking about the intermingling of craft and art. You don't get art without crafting it.

No, the nuts and bolts are not just technical. Most of us wrote papers on Macbeth or Hamlet. We might have limited the nuts and bolts to, as I said, grammar, meter, sentence structure, and voice. But we got more to the emotional nuts and bolts when we talked about what Hamlet was trying to express in his "To be or not to be" soliloquy, or what we thought Lady Macbeth was trying to wipe away when she was obsessed with getting out the damned spot, what the characters were feeling and how Shakespeare's words conveyed that, how he expressed it, what symbolism was used to further our emotional response.

It's not so much about why I might like a night sky. It's about how a night sky is used in a photo to elicit the response it elicits. What's the difference in feeling if I can still make out clouds and shadows in the night sky or if it's more graphically black? Do I feel differently when the night sky occupies the majority of the frame vs. a portion of the frame? What things does the night sky illuminate and how does the revelation of those other elements make me feel about the night sky? Do I feel differently when I view the night sky as if from straight below, without a view of the horizon vs. when I include the horizon in my field of vision? What gives some night skies a sense of mystery, others a sense of calm? No, these are not questions I ask myself when I'm shooting. But they may be the kinds of questions I ask myself at other times that wind up informing my shooting later on.

What Donna's description leaves out is all that advance connecting, thinking, wondering, and imagining she does that still goes into that moment of shooting, even if she's not conscious of it or dwelling on it in that very moment. Donna brings her history to the table when she's in that moment of shooting. That moment is much more than just that moment, IMO. It is a culmination of all kinds of moments that create the Donna who points the camera and shoots. Though she feels as though she's totally in that moment, that moment is a very pregnant one.

Stephen and I were obviously writing simultaneously and appear to be on similar pages.

I do understand what you both mean, and I understand the validity of what you are claiming--up to a point. To the extent that technique and content vary and evolve over time, one may surely see evidence of the feedback loop from analyzing one's own prior work as well as that of others.

There are certainly things that I have shot in the past that I would not bother to shoot again, even as I was quite enamored of them at the time.

I like playing the agnostic once in a while. There is still, of course, that je ne sais quoi in photography, which you have aptly summed up, Fred, as "magic."

Stephen, you are likewise correct that what impels Donna to shoot from the gut is a distillate of much prior analysis and much prior viewing of the works of others, as well as her own.

That leads me on to another point that I shall not try to defend here tonight: to the extent that I benefit from reflection over a photo, it is usually simply by looking at what others have done, although that can only be the first sentence in a rather long possible disquisition. . . .

For the record, however, I still think of shooting as an inherently non-intellectual activity where esthetic judgment is concerned, and esthetic judgment in general is probably at its core non-intellectual, in my opinion. There's always more to be said, of course. . . .

--Lannie

Stephen, one of yours "just happened" to appear on the page here as I was typing ("just happened" if one believes that such things are always simply coincidences):

[LINK]

That picture would surely have to be worthy of much further analysis.

Here is another night shot (not a moon shot) that Rich Scott pointed out to me. My question is why I like it so much:

[LINK]

There probably are reasons, but I am hard pressed to offer them at a moment's notice.

For the moment, I can only say that I like the night, which is why my first folder is titled "A Shot in the Dark." There is something mysterious and wonderful about the night and the night sky, which is not to say that there is not much, much more to be said as to why I like a particular photo of the night.

--Lannie

Lannie, of course I know you know the difference between a photo of the sky and the sky (obviously, we all do), yet I do note that you don't speak to that difference. You are talking above, for example, about photos of the night and yet you talk about liking the night, and the mysteries of the night sky. What about the photos, though? Have you considered not why you like the night but what it is about a certain picture of the night (other than the night itself) that you like?

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't be put into words in a critique and shared with others. Aesthetic judgement is not beyond intellectual understanding (IMO; I don't pretend to be a scholar on this subject). For example, I'm really drawn to photographing solitary trees; there's a particular aesthetic and emotional pull there for me. I also think I can describe, at least in part, the origins of this emotionally based attraction and why it still exists in me today. I don't think about it, but I can feel it when I'm looking through a viewfinder. If I can work this into a critique, it may help a photographer understand how and why I feel a particular way about his or her photograph. It could even expand the way they look at their own photograph; I've certainly had that happen to me when reading some comments from others regarding my photographs.

I could and do do that from time to time, Fred. I simply do not enjoy doing it as much as you do.

My larger point tonight might better be rephrased as follows, that is, as a thesis of sorts: There is something irreducible in esthetic judgment, something intuitive that neither reason nor experience can explain.

That is sufficiently vague that I can live with it for now. It grows late here in the East.

--Lannie

Just to be clear, Lannie, I agree with your last point. There absolutely is something irreducible about art, something intuitive. That's the part that can't be explained. Simultaneously, much can be.

Stephen, I am simply left wondering how we factor out our own experiences and emotions from what I have just referred to as "something irreducible in esthetic judgment." Um, it seem that I am already positing my thesis as a theorem. Time to wrap it up for the night before I start trying to square the circle or offer my own unified field theory.

I will say, in response to some of what you have said, that sometimes I miss something really great about a photo until someone points it out to me. Even so, it seems, more often than not, that merely pointing it out to me is sufficient. An explanation seems often to be superfluous. One either sees it or one does not.

I do believe in communicating about such matters. I am, after all, a denizen of the site--a nocturnal denizen at that.

--Lannie

Yes, of course. I can see that, Fred, and I have appreciated the exchange with both of you and with Arthur as well.

I would like to know how Bela feels about his own photos, and about this one in particular.

Where the heck is Wouter in all this? Did he just not like the photo?

--Lannie

Fred, I am just left wondering how much of the judgment of the value of a photo comes from that intuitive core, especially at the moment of shooting. That last consideration goes back to the question of how much our esthetic "eye" is a product of what is intuitively pleasing as opposed to what has a history in our previous history and analyses.

I have nothing new to offer on that issue tonight.

--Lannie

And Fred is right: some photographs of solitary trees work better (have a stronger impact) for me than other photographs of solitary trees. What are the characteristics of the photos that have the strongest impact? This is, I think, the same concept Fred posed last week or the week before (I'll dig it up tomorrow) that really had me puzzled as to what he was saying. Maybe the discussion stemming from Bela's POW will help me better understand the discussion of a previous POW.

Perhaps, Stephen. The same might be true for me on moon shots.

I am quite sure that nothing any of us is going to see is going to help us understand why Gerry from three weeks back is now writing as Geraldine--or was the last time I looked.

--Lannie